Toshiba to buy additional shares of Westinghouse for $ 522 million

10/04/2017

Toshiba announced acquisition of an additional number of shares of bankrupt company Westinghouse Electric, because of which the Japanese conglomerate suffered huge losses. The National Atomic Company of Kazakhstan Kazatomprom will sell a 10% stake in Westinghouse Electric for 59 billion yen ($ 522 million).

Richard Huppertz

The controlling stake in Westinghouse Electric, which services nuclear power plants, was acquired by Japanese Toshiba in 2006 for $ 5.4 billion. At the end of 2016, Toshiba warned of writing off several billion dollars in Westinghouse due to cost overruns in some projects in the US. Because of this, the corporation showed record losses for the year.

Westinghouse went bankrupt, and now, to gain full control of the company, Toshiba buys 10% of the company's shares for 59 billion yen ($ 522 million) from the national atomic company of Kazakhstan, Kazatomprom, according to Reuters.

Kazatomprom bought a stake in Westinghouse in 2007 for $ 540 million with an "option-put" condition, under which the Kazakh company had the right to sell its shares back to Toshiba Corporation at a fixed cost corresponding to the initial investment.

The planned date for the acquisition of shares is January 1, 2018. According to agency sources, Westinghouse is studying options for the sale of the company, the price may amount to $ 4 billion.

Among the contenders for the purchase were called Blackstone Group and Apollo Global Management. Media also reported that Cerberus Capital Management is negotiating with the US component manufacturer for BWX Technologies to submit a joint application.

Toshiba has put its key business for production of NAND memory chips on auction on the backdrop of Westinghouse's growing losses. Toshiba’s losses, associated with the activities of Westinghouse Electric, reached almost $ 7 billion. The Japanese corporation for more than eight months has been choosing a buyer of the Toshiba Memory division. Several times the media wrote that the decision has almost been made, but Toshiba always deceived investors' hopes for various reasons. Amount of the transaction has repeatedly been revised: after one of the parties increased the deal offer, the other party also was in a hurry to respond by raising the offer for the semiconductor business of the Japanese company.